


everything i wanted (might’ve been a nightmare)

by musthavebeen_thewind



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Hallucinations, Hurt Peter, Hurt Peter Parker, Illusions, Infinity Stone Soul World (Marvel), Peter Parker Angst, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Mess, Sad Peter Parker, Soul Stone (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:40:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27630862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musthavebeen_thewind/pseuds/musthavebeen_thewind
Summary: 𝘪 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳Or- the soul world isn’t all it’s made out to be.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff & Peter Parker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	everything i wanted (might’ve been a nightmare)

"Don't look, don't look..."

Peter laughed. "Relax May, I can't see anything."

She had her hands over his eyes, soft and warm and familiar as she guided him through the entryway and inside their house. She'd startled him as soon as he'd opened the door, and thrown her hands around him. "I've got a surprise for you, sweetie," she'd said, a smile in her voice, and he tried to swat at her hands but she was stubborn as ever. And besides, she knew he loved surprises, she always knew.

He felt the thick, furry carpet under his feet, luxurious and soft, expensive, and then the cool tile of the kitchen.

"May come on, what is it?" he said, with an air of forced nonchalance, but simmering with giddy excitement underneath.

"Almost there, aaaaand...."

"SURPRISE!"

The kitchen was big, but as packed with people as it was, it seemed so much smaller. There’s confetti absolutely everywhere, a towering stack of pizza boxes, a bottle of champagne, the good kind, not the cheap stuff from the grocery store, an elaborate cake, and people everywhere, his friends, his classmates, his family. There was a flurry of hugs, MJ kissing his cheek, "Happy Birthday, dork."

He wrapped an arm around her, kissing her properly, her chocolate curls tickling his nose, her lips soft where they pressed against his, and-

"Come on, get a room, you two!"

Flash Thompson tugged him away and clapped his arm around him in a half hug, and since when had he been on a hugging basis with Flash Thompson?

_But of course, that's your best friend,_ said a soft voice in the back of his head, reassuring. _You two were thick as thieves since you were kids. And MJ, your girlfriend. Beautiful, smart, witty MJ._

Peter whirled around, and pointed an accusing finger at his aunt.

"You planned this!"

She smiles, twirls a lock of hair around her finger the way she always does when she's a little nervous, the gold of her wedding band glinting like the sun where it caught the light. "Well... I can't take all the credit," she begins, and then he's tackled into a bear hug by someone big, with strong burly arms that he feels might crush his thin frame -

(Thin? Crush? That's not right. Nothing can crush you, not since the bi-)

-he turns around, and-

Uncle Ben grins at him.

For a moment, he's somewhere else: a shot rings out, wet blood, still warm but it doesn't make sense because he's cold cold cold, someone screaming, someone crying.

And then the image is gone as fast as it came.

"Hey, kiddo! God I can't believe it. 18, huh?"

And he feels it again, the little prickle at the back of his neck, the cold shiver of confusion, but he doesn't know why.

"Uncle Ben, quit hugging me like that," he says automatically, and he's not sure what he's saying or why but the words keep falling out and his mind races to catch up, "You're going to choke all the life out of me and then I won't even get to eat the _cake_."

"And what a tragedy that would be. Always the dramatic Pete," drawls a new voice, one he recognizes, one he knows like the back of his hand, one he loves.

(One you haven't heard in over ten years.)

"Dad!" Peter practically shrieks, running over to him as he steps into the threshold. "You're home early!"

Richard Parker pulls his son against him, ruffles his hair. "Well of course, what did you expect? I wouldn't miss today for the world, kiddo."

And the cold is back again, but the soft voice in the back of his head soothes his worries.

_What are you worrying for Pete? You know your dad never missed a birthday in your life. He's always loved you, always protected you. Always, always, forever forever forever._

And then another figure appears behind his dad when Peter looks up, and he hugs her too immediately.

"Oh, Happy Birthday, my sweet boy," his mom says, kissing the crown of his head. "Oh look at my baby, all grown up. I can't believe it."

And Peter sinks into her warm embrace, and breathes her in, the mild scent of the lab, but above that, the heavy, sweet smell of vanilla on her skin.

He blinked then. Vanilla; that was odd. His mother was the most practical woman in his life, and she had always found it so silly for women to go around smelling like dessert plates. She always, always wore lavender perfume, because it was Peter's favourite flower and hers too. He presses his face into her neck, sniffs again, and it's lavender. He relaxes. It's always been lavender.

But even wrapped in his mother's arms, the cold feeling pierces the warmth of her embrace and it's sharp, persistent, so much so that he pulls away to find that she is frozen. And so is his father, and Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something peculiar: A wisp of smoke, a snaking red tendril, barely there and yet so obvious. He turns around, and sees that the perpetrator, the handler of the red tendrils is a girl.

She looks ordinary enough, and young, maybe twenty. She's pretty too, with long auburn hair, and a red jacket over her slender figure. She could pass as your everyday college student, and for a second Peter wonders if maybe she's a distant cousin, one of his relatives, and then he sees her eyes.

They are glowing a faint red, and under it he can see a thin film of annoyance hiding poorly veiled concern, and under that, he sees pain.

"Come on, Peter, you know this isn't real," she says, and she sounds so sad it almost breaks his heart.

"What? Who are you?"

(You know her, come on, that's-)

That's who? His mind doesn't finish the thought, and he frowns at the girl.

"Do you need help?" he asks.

"Peter it's me. Wanda. We met in Germany, remember?"

_Oh Peter, you've never even been out of the country. Your parents worry too much. You're a safe family,_ says the soft voice, but it's distant now, faraway.

(That’s not right, there was a plane, a plane and your parents and something happened what was it-)

"This isn't real, it's a hallucination. You need to fight it. Wishes are a powerful thing, Peter. The stone is trying to show you the deepest wishes of your soul, but it doesn't understand humans, not really. It's warped, wrong, you need to break out of it. Find the wrongness, use it to push you out."

_Find the wrongness. But how could this ever be wrong? You're happy Peter. You're so happy here. Nothing can hurt you, we'll make sure of it, we'll keep you safe. Now come, they're about to cut the cake._

The red tendrils are fading, and the voice washes over his mind, slick and sweet and warm like honey, and it grows louder and louder. Yes. He's happy. He's with his family, Flash and MJ, and May and Ben, and his parents, where he belongs, where he's always belonged. He is happy.

He blinks, and he hears singing.

"- happy birthday, dear Peter..."

He is in the kitchen. How did he get here? He was just standing in the entryway with his parents. He doesn't know.

Across the kitchen island, Uncle Ben hands him a knife.

(A knife, a knife, that means danger, remember the time you hand a run in with the knife and the mugger as Spiderm-)

_To cut the cake, of course. That’s why you're holding the knife. Don't be silly._

He blinks again and a slice of cake has been cut in front of him. Ice Cream cake, his favourite.

(No, you love the grocery store BlackForest-)

No. Ice Cream cake is his favourite. He takes a bite. It's cold.

(Cold, cold, cold, the cold is back it's back, somethings wrong, something is-)

He looks around for the girl with the red jacket and red smoke, but she is gone, and there is no sign she was ever here in the first place.

He blinks again. They are seated in a circle in their living room, opening presents, and he realizes that once again, he's been caught in his thoughts and nobody waited for him. He feels out of breath all of a sudden, a little dizzy, because god, somethings wrong. He’s happy here, he is, but somethings missing. What is it?

He blinks back, to a moment a few moments away, and this time the wrapping paper is strewn about and all that’s left is a single small, blue box to open. Ben and his Father are bubbling with the excitement, and once the present is open, even he’s a little excited because _ohmygodarethosecarkeys?!_ There was, in fact, a small pair of keys to a Toyota, a relatively new model, and it hits suddenly that it hasn’t been a what missing but a who, a person who taught him to drive, who he built cars and suits with and in the back of his mind he’s seeing little disjointed images of a lab, a large flatscreen, shawarma takeout, pieces of a puzzle where he can’t see the picture but he sees enough. Because if this is it, the deepest wishes of his soul, if he’s to be happy here, then-

“Where’s Tony?”

May, Ben, and his parents all turn to him in unison. They smile, serenely, with the air of people who have never had anything to worry about except surprising their boy with cake and a car. 

“Who’s Tony?”

The image splits. It’s fracturing, dark cracks spiderwebbing through the perfect world he’s created, the illusion, and he’s not falling, not crashing, just spinning endlessly as the world crumbles around him. 

His parents have been dead for over ten years. Ben has been dead for nearly three.

Peter is dead too.

When he opens his eyes, the sky is orange. Not a warm kind, like sunsets, but an angry, dull one. It’s just orange and dead as far as the eye can see and Peter wonders, if this is hell.

It’s not as if he doesn’t deserve it.

Peter weeps.

_i had a dream_

_i got everything i wanted_

_not what you’d think_

_and if i’m being honest_

_it might have been a nightmare_

____

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooooo y’all i literally don’t know what this was, kinda flew into my head in the middle of the night, you know how it is. I’m not super happy with it, but whatever. So this is technically the first work I’ve ever posted on here (not quite, because I’ve written on some other platforms that i no longer use) but it’s funny because I’ve actually written a lottt of stuff that I never actually had the guts to post because *insecurities* do be like that haha. But anywayy i do have an actual fic that i’m decently proud of that i’m currently putting through a rigorous editing process loll buttt i’ll post it soon. Comments and kudos seriously mean the world to me. Anyhow, have a lovely day my dudes, stay safe out there <3


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